Assortment of top titles. Discover top titles, podcasts, and more on Audible. Try 30 days free.
To share your reaction on this item, open the Amazon app from the App Store or Google Play on your phone.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
$37.84
FREE delivery Thursday, January 30
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: 12 September
$37.84
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Thursday, January 30
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Monday, January 27. Order within 15 hrs 22 mins.
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$37.84 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$37.84
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$10.95
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Thursday, January 30 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 20 hrs 37 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$37.84 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$37.84
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Planning Extreme Programming Paperback – October 16, 2000

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 38 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$37.84","priceAmount":37.84,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"37","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"84","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"I9SO9NozgGncHZJOys2GqaVeQGRpf9E2tL7BQxRGXWeD20dtlonViszReUwVJV0tFwQ1FzxPHJEFI2jNBOqcXAeZjm17NR8DcMlbFAhaL4J%2FhlUAX6%2Fwwzqx5kwZ7e6HDXYiAyMniAGfWTznOHsQKE1PDReLSZHifWOJZ47LdgaLri9IGq6KRdD6Vu%2Fm%2FPnd","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$10.95","priceAmount":10.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"10","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"I9SO9NozgGncHZJOys2GqaVeQGRpf9E2AOog%2Fd%2Ft7PS9GDgdIgYAYh0QqaOzuj7Q0GLO0eHB3YSj8yyEWXDg3LaxwMJdnbI%2FnanVorp6e%2Fq%2FLtIUUQ%2FyqrDJypQUaHVLu5tPk1kCfs5xaoemDTvz4lKfnBAo09K%2FvgdtHrGFgeodht4O8P9s%2Fm5ETcOc2vTu","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Planning is critical; without it, software projects can quickly fall apart. Written by acknowledged XP authorities Kent Beck and Martin Fowler, Planning Extreme Programming presents the approaches, methods, and advice needed to plan and track a successful Extreme Programming project. The key XP philosophy: Planning is not a one-time event, but a constant process of reevaluation and course-correction throughout the lifecycle of the project. Students will learn how planning is essential to controlling workload, reducing programmer stress, increasing productivity, and keeping projects on track. Planning Extreme Programming also focuses on the importance of estimating the cost and time for each user story (requirement), determining its priority, and planning software releases accordingly.
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

This item: Planning Extreme Programming
$37.84
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 30
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by 12 September and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
$42.74
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 30
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$56.97
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 30
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by MbBooks and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Extreme Programming (XP) paradigm has developers doing things like programming in pairs, writing tests to verify all code, and continuously refactoring designs for improved performance. Written by two of its inventors, Planning Extreme Programming shows you how to implement XP by using a simple, effective process. This remarkably short (yet remarkably useful) title will give any XP manager or programmer a perspective on delivering software that meets the needs of customers better.

Simplicity is the watchword of the XP software process. This book is virtually devoid of traditional software-engineering jargon and design diagrams, and yet does a good job of laying the foundation of how to perform XP--which is all about working with a customer to deliver features incrementally.

The terminology in the book is commonsensical. (In the terms of XP, each iteration adds certain new features, or stories. It's up to the customer to decide what functionality is more important and will be delivered first. By never letting a working build get out of sight, the XP process virtually ensures that software will be close to what the customer wants.)

Early chapters borrow analogies from everyday experience--like planning a trip or driving a car--to set the stage for XP process planning. The book has plenty of advice for dealing with the stakeholders (customers) of a project. Because of confidentiality agreements, however, we don't get many details from the real world, although the discussion is anchored by a hypothetical project for planning the Web site of the future for travel, with some specifics.

There is plenty of advice for planning projects, based on individual and team "velocity" (a measure of productivity) and the like--practical suggestions for running daily, short status meetings (in which all of the participants stand up, to keep them short). Clearly, there's a culture that surrounds many XP teams, and this text does a good job of conveying some of this to the reader.

At fewer than 150 pages, Planning Extreme Programming is notably concise, and that's probably the whole point. Most shops today work on Internet time, which doesn't wait for extensive project analysis and design documents. In XP, you create working software from the very start. This book is an essential guide to anyone who's working in XP shops or who might be interested in what this innovative, iterative software process can offer. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

  • Introduction to planning
  • Risk management in software
  • "Driving" as a metaphor for software development
  • Roles for software development: business vs. technical people
  • Four variables for project planning: cost, quality, time, and scope
  • Predicting future programmer productivity, based on past performance
  • Project scope and estimation
  • The XP process: software releases, iterations, stories, collecting, and writing stories (features)
  • Hints for ordering features
  • Tips on planning and status meetings
  • Using visual graphs to monitor project progress
  • Tracking and fixing bugs
  • Project red flags

From the Inside Flap

This is a book about planning software projects. We are writing it mostly for project managers--those who have to plan and track the correspondence of the planning with reality. We also are writing it for programmers and customers, who have a vital role to play in planning and developing software. Planning is not about predicting the future. When you make a plan for developing a piece of software, development is not going to go like that. Not ever. Your customers wouldn't even be happy if it did, because by the time the software gets there, the customers don't want what was planned; they want something different.

Like so many, we enjoy Eisenhower's quotation: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." That's why this isn't a book about plans; it's about planning. And planning is so valuable and important, so vital, that it deserves to go on a little every day, as long as development lasts.

If you follow the advice in this book, you are going to have a new problem to solve every day--planning--but we won't apologize for that, because without planning, software development inevitably goes off the rails. The scope of this book is deliberately narrow. It covers how to plan and track software development for XP projects. It's based on our experience as consultants and coaches, together with the experience of the growing band of early adopters who are using XP.

As a result this isn't a book about the whole of project management. We don't cover typical project manager jobs such as personnel evaluation, recruiting, and budgeting. We don't address the issues of large projects with hordes of developers, nor do we say anything about planning in the context of other software processes, or of planning other activities. We think there are principles and techniques here that everyone can use, but we have stuck to the parts of the process we know--getting everybody on the team pointed in one direction, discovering when this is no longer true, and restoring harmony.

XP (Extreme Programming) is a system of practices (you can use the m-word if you want to; we'd rather not, thank you) that a community of software developers is evolving to address the problems of quickly delivering quality software, and then evolving it to meet changing business needs.

XP isn't just about planning. It covers all aspects of small team software development--design, testing, implementation, deployment, and maintenance. However, planning is a key piece of the XP puzzle. (For an overview of XP, read Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. While you're at it, buy copies of all of the rest of our books, too.)

XP addresses long projects by breaking them into a sequence of self-contained, one- to three-week mini-projects. During each iteration

Customers pick the features to be added. Programmers add the features so they are completely ready to be deployed. Programmers and customers write and maintain automated tests to demonstrate the presence of these features. Programmers evolve the design of the system to gracefully support all the features in the system.

Without careful planning, the process falls apart.

The team must choose the best possible features to implement. The team must react as positively as possible to the inevitable setbacks. Team members must not overcommit, or they will slow down. The team must not undercommit, or customers won't get value for their money. Team members must figure out clearly where they are and report this accurately, so that everyone can adjust their plans accordingly

The job of the daily planner is to help keep the team on track in all these areas.

We come by our project planning ideas by necessity. As consultants, we are usually introduced to projects when they are mostly dead. The projects typically aren't doing any planning, or they are drowning in too much planning of the wrong sort.

The resulting ideas are the simplest planning ideas we could think of that could possibly work. But above all, remember all the planning techniques in the world, including these, can't save you if you forget that software is built by human beings. In the end keep the human beings focused, happy, and motiviated and they will deliver. Kent Beck, Merlin, Oregon
Martin Fowler, Melrose, Massachusetts martinfowler
July 2000

I have a cunning plan.
--Baldrick, Blackadder

0201710919P04062001

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (October 16, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0201710919
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201710915
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.21 x 7.36 x 0.45 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 38 ratings

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
38 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2024
    Single small book that covers all the important aspects of XP put into practice.
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2013
    A friend gave me this book to get me introduced to agile and extreme programming. What I really love about the book is how it's lesson apply across many different types of projects, although it focuses on software projects. It's very blunt about the practical challenges of planning (e.g., a detailed 2-year plan gives a false impression of certainty; the truth is that things will change over the next 2 years) and work ("Overtime doesn't help [in the long run]...long hours make people tired, tired people make mistakes, and mistakes take time to fix."). To overcome these challenges, the book provides a methodology for prioritizing tasks and developing accurate short-term estimates -- great tools!

    I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in planning and managing projects from Thanksgiving dinner to the next iPhone app.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2006
    Well, I had been tentative about spending time investigating the meaning of "Extreme Programming", based primarily on what I consider to be a name that smacks of jargon, and because I thought that the audience for this development approach was young hip gamer-types who wanted to develop business applications! I now appologize to those who synthesized the techniques (although I still consider the name to be unfortunate, sorry). I am optimistic that this approach to development will solve many of the problems that I have faced over the years, and that this solution is much simpler than I could have dreamed of! This book is just 130 pages, and the techniques are clearly, succinctly, and I think expertly described by Kent and Martin. The level of humor is good, and the practicality of the solution is clear.
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2000
    Planning XP is well-written, just like Robert's Uml Distilled and Refactoring. Reading it was as easy as reading a child's story book. Of course, the content of it are serious, for developers, customers as well as project managers.
    This book talks in details the planning and requirement gathering part in XP process. The order of reading the three books would be XP Explained, XP Installed followed by Planning XP.
    One shortcoming of the book IMHO would be that the example on the travel booking system should be elaborated on. We all learn from examples and it would be great if the content of the book is develop around this example to give a better understanding of the subject. Even so, this book is great in explaining about subject, simply because it's practical. It tells you how to go about doing it and not what you should do.
    Do not refuse to read it just because you do not believes in XP. XP books are always littered with good tips which are applicable even if you are using other processes.
    Comparing prices, this book is rather expensive, considering that I can get the GoF book one dollar cheaper here in my country. The GoF book is thicker and comes with hard covers.
    Even though it is expensive, I would still recommend it, as I feel that this should be a book that everyone in a project team should own. Rush to your nearest bookstore now!
    12 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2001
    What do you want me to say? This book is but one of a series. It is not a panacea for all your ills. It only talks about developing quality software when you're under the gun. My colleagues agree that these guys put together the best commerical practices of the past 20 years into one adaptive methodology. The cool thing about this is that you don't have to impliment the thing en todo to get the results you want. Find what you like and start there.
    Overall I found this book a delightful read. The chapters are short, like XP's iteration cycle. Short is sweet when you're an over-worked programmer like me. At first I was underwhelmed by this approach, but it works! The annotated bibliography in the back of this book (and others in this series) helps understand the author better and give you context.
    This book offers practical advice.
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2001
    I think that the Gof book referred to in another review is probably the classic volume 'Design Patterns' written by the Gang of Four, Gamma, Helm, Johnson & Vlissides (395 pages)
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2001
    Very good book for everybody wanting to know how to plan and organize an XP project. Very practical, concise. A must read for anyone involved in XP.
  • Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2000
    The many other reviews here give you a sense of what you'll find in this book. I think there is one important point that is missing from this picture: the fact that the focus of the authors in this and the first book is on software processes where there really is no visioning going on at all. What do I mean by that? Well, in the first book they are describing the writing of a payroll program (their project @ Chrysler). In this book it's a travel application. Thankfully, not all of us are writing software that has been written a thousand times before. While this may sound like a trifle, I believe it is a central point with regard to this book. The whole concept of iterative, incremental development takes on a different hue when you remove visioning from the process. In fact, what the world really needs to figure out how to do is not write the 10,000th payroll program faster than someone else, but how to write new, innovative software on time allowances that are absurdly short. I think the next volume if there is to be one, should be a detailed account of a project where the team had to navigate the process through not only implementation but realization of an evolving, sophisticated vision. Finally, consider the fact that software development that requires no visioning is basically a craft that's akin to dressmaking. While some people are happy to see their creativity as 'developers' manifest solely in finding crafty implementations, let's face the facts: we need to figure out how to get beyond just opposing tribes matching each other's features on models that are overdue for commodification.
    61 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars muy bueno!!
    Reviewed in Mexico on August 21, 2021
    Es una lectura sencilla rápida y entendible, me gusto mucho
  • Sohnee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Plenty To Add To XP, Scrum or any Agile Process
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 27, 2014
    I have read most of the XP series books because I'm interested in the roots of Agile. This book adds plenty to the subject of planning, be it XP, Scrum or any other Agile process.
  • Freddy Mallet
    5.0 out of 5 stars Deux éminences grises des méthodes agiles pour un livre
    Reviewed in France on October 13, 2004
    Ce livre de Kent Beck et Martin Fowler n'est pas un nième livre sur XP dans son ensemble mais porte uniquement sur une des best practices d'XP: le planning game. Le livre est extrêmement fluide, à la porté de tous, et repose sur la très forte expérience de ces deux hommes en terme de conduite de projet. bravo!
  • Hans Peter Bornhauser
    5.0 out of 5 stars Praxisnahe Planung für Xtreme Programmer
    Reviewed in Germany on August 16, 2001
    Eine Einführung in Extreme Programming ist es nicht, sondern wie der Titel sagt, geht es um die Planung von Projekten, die nach den Richtlinien von XP entwickelt werden. Wofür andere Bücher ein Kapitel reservieren, wird hier anhand konkreter Beispiele aus der Praxis ausführlich erklärt. Das Buch ist sehr lesenswert und motivierend. Es eignet sich für Projektleiter, die auch auf den XP Express aufspringen möchten und vorher bereits Extreme Programming Explained oder Extreme Programming Installed gelesen haben.
  • Chinara Isabaeva
    5.0 out of 5 stars better if everybody in the team will read this book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 12, 2017
    Must read book to developers and project managers, better if everybody in the team will read this book.